Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday vetoed a bill that would have cleared the way
for productliability lawsuits against the tobacco industry by people who
say they were injured by secondhand smoke.

Wilson has signed two other bills that strip the tobacco industry of the
protection it enjoyed under a 1987 statute exempting from productliability
lawsuits the makers or sellers of inherently unsafe products.

But he said the bill vetoed Friday, by Sen. Byron Sher, DStanford, was
rendered moot by an earlier measure removing tobacco from the list of
protected products.

In another matter, Wilson vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed
millions of California motorists to renew their car registrations via the
Internet by 1999.